Cider-Dijon Pork Chops with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Apples

Sautéing is another fast way to make a meal, especially when the pan juices are turned into a sweet and savory sauce, as they are here. This comforting dish features an array of autumn ingredients—apples, fennel, and sweet potatoes—roasted in the oven to caramelize lightly and bring their sugars to the forefront. The sauce, which mingles apple cider with the meaty browned bits in the skillet, is sharpened with a bit of Dijon mustard to balance the sweetness.

Preparation

1. Remove the pork from the refrigerator and let stand at room temperature while the oven preheats. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Place a large rimmed baking sheet in the oven and heat until very hot.

2. To cook the vegetables and apples: In a large bowl, toss the sweet potatoes, apples, fennel, and rosemary with the olive oil to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Carefully remove the baking sheet from the oven and spread the vegetables and apples on it. Roast, turning the ingredients over halfway through, for about 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are nicely browned and tender.

3. Meanwhile, cook the pork: Season the pork with salt and pepper. Heat a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil, then add the chops to the skillet and cook for about 5 minutes per side, or until golden brown and barely pink when pierced in the center with the tip of a small sharp knife. Transfer to a platter (reserving the oil in the skillet) and let stand for 5 minutes.

4. Pour off all but 1 teaspoon of the oil from the skillet, leaving the brown bits in the pan. Return the pan to medium-low heat, add the apple cider, and bring to a simmer, scraping up the brown bits with a wooden spoon. Whisk in the mustard and simmer for about 2 minutes to reduce the liquid slightly. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter to lightly thicken the sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

5. Divide the sweet potato mixture among four dinner plates. Place a pork chop alongside the vegetables on each plate. Drizzle with the pan sauce and serve.

Curtis Stone is the author of five cookbooks and host of Top Chef Masters on Bravo. He is also the creator of Kitchen Solutions, a sleek line of cookware sold in retailers worldwide, and writes a monthly column for Men's Fitness. Born in Melbourne, Australia, Stone honed his skills in London at Café Royal, under legendary three-star Michelin chef Marco Pierre White, and at Mirabelle and the revered Quo Vadis. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.

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Reviews

This was very good! Simple but tasty. I followed other reviewers suggestions and used onions instead of fennel as I'm not a huge fennel fan. I made more veggies than recipe called for and I was happy I did. They were very good.

This was delish and easy to make. Next time I will use sweet onion instead of fennel as the flavor is a little to biting, but otherwise it was fabulous. I roasted my veggies for probably about 25 minutes, and my pork took a bit longer than 5 minutes per side. Overall, this is a great fall dish.

This was super easy and delicious! I would next time probably use onion instead of the fennel (and maybe throw in a turnip or something next time as other suggested), and I cooked my veg for prob 35 min or so. But, really really great flavors overall. Would definitely make again.

Superb! Easy recipe and excellent flavors. Followed the recipe, but cooked vegetables longer and added a handful of dried cherries. Next time we will cut the fennel thinner and add cherries to the sauce as they were a little crunchy with the vegetables. Will definitely make this again.

This dish worked on every level! I had read the other reviews regarding the temperature and cooking time for the yams so I cut mine to about a 1/2" cube, and everything was roasted nicely in about 20 minutes (I did 425 convection). I didn't get any caramelization or browning (too much steam produced after the salting, is my guess), so I flipped on the broiler for the last couple of minutes to finish and produce the crust on the veggies. Pork was delicious, the sauce was sublime. I didn't swap any ingredients out -- prepared as written save for the size of the sweet potato dice. This is going into the rotation.

I really loved the combination of flavors in this recipe, but I agree with other reviewers in that there is something wrong in the instructions as to the size of the yams/apples/fennel or in the temperature/time of cooking. I tried to cut and cook them as outlined in the recipe, and after the 15 minutes, they were not browned at all. I left them in for another 10-15 minutes, and they STILL were not browned. They were cooked through and a little mushy, but definitely not that nice brown you like to get from roasting. I suspect maybe the moisture from the apples had something to do with it? If I were to make it again, I would cut the yams into much smaller pieces, and roast the veggies for a longer time. Even with the roasting snafu, it was still delicious!

I thought this was delicious. To make it slightly healthier I didn't add the butter to the gravy and we loved it. I also would turn the oven way down next time! 450 blackened almost all my vegetables. I'll try 400 next time. Otherwise delicious!

I had to fiddle with this recipe, primarily because the shop was out of fennel, nor did they have apple cider. So I used anise seed for the sauce and unsweetened apple juice. I also added Brussels sprouts and parsnip to the veg/fruit mix. Accompanied with a good pinot noir and all was forgiven. I will certainly make this again.

WOWOWOW!!!
ALWAYS I read the
reviews BEFORE I
cook, to find out
what successes,
exchanges & of
course the failures.
I substituted Honey
Wine from
Fallentimber Meadery
for the Apple Juice.
I selected the
recipe from the
title and was
further excited to
discovered I had
everything on hand:
Fennel, Sweet
Potato, Pink Lady
Apples and added a
Garnet Sweet Potato
PLUS added the
FENNEL GREENS
similar to Dill.
** VEG COOKING TIME
** 1st the oven is
preheating at 450 F
very hot - with the
baking pan.
2. Add the veg to
the HOT sheet roast
15 min TURN then
another 15 min.
3. give me 10 min
for the pork
4. 5 min for meat to
rest and to make the
sauce.
PERFECT timing and absolutely delicious!

Although the flavors
in this recipe are
excellent, I'm only
giving it one star
because the cooking
times for the
vegetables are way
off. I do not
believe you can cook
2" chunks of yam for
15 minutes and have
them be soft enough
to eat. I cut my
yams into much
smaller pieces and
they took about 35
minutes, which is
certainly more in
line with most roast
sweet potato
recipes. Otherwise,
it's lovely. I used
onion instead of
fennel, and subbed a
combination of
chicken broth, white
wine, and cider
vinegar for the
apple juice. The
flavors were
delicious.

Does anyone else
think that the size
of the cut sweet
potatoes (2")
and the roasting
time (15 minutes at
450) is no where
near enough??? I'm
making this recipe
now and I cut my
yams into 1/2" x 1"
pieces and they are
no where near done
at 15 minutes. I am
surprised no one
commented on this
before....

I would follow this recipe as closely as
possible. The melding of flavors is what
makes this dish. If you just cannot bare
the fennel, I might try turnips. Again,
altering the sauce is almost
unforgiveable. Be sure to mount the
butter away from heat and let it thicken
slightly before serving.

Boy, the roasted vegetables were dynamite together. I'd considered leaving out the fennel, and I'm glad I didn't. I didn't feel like buying a whole thing of apple juice just for this, so I used what I had on hand, which was homemade blackberry vinegar and some rich chicken stock. It was EXCELLENT as the sauce, and went perfectly with all the vegetables. I think apple juice would have been sweeter than I like. One thing I wish I had done is a light dusting of flour on the pork chops to give it a crispy crust. The ones in the photo look like they've been dusted with panko and fried...they made me jealous, since mine were fine but not nearly as succulent looking as those.

A wonderful recipe! I'm not big on fennel,
so I used onion instead. Other than that,
I followed the recipe exactly. The chops
were moist and the sauce was the perfect
compliment to the whole dish. It was quick
and delicious.

This recipe was wonderful. My fiance said this was one of the best pork chops (excluding pork loin) I've made. After working 10+ hours and dealing with NOVA traffic it's nice to come home and have an easy meal like this to throw together. We tweaked the recipe a bit with some other fresh herbs but overall I would absolutely make this again.

My husband said that this was one of the best meals I've ever made. He loved it!
I changed a couple of things:
I used sweet potatoes, granny smith apples and onions tossed in olive oil and rosemary.
I also used organic vegetable broth instead of apple cider or juice. Then I added two heaping tablespoons of "tantalizing mustard" from Honeybaked. Using that type of mustard eliminated the need for the butter as well.
After browning the chops on the stove, I put them on top of the apples & veggies to finish.